It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Saturday, December 06, 2008
Harpers War Body Count Reaches 100
Canada's role in the invasion of Afghanistan, as an active combatant in operations against the Taliban and other insurgents in southern Afghanistan, has produced the largest number of fatal casualties for any single Canadian military mission since the 25th Canadian Brigade served in the Korean War from 1950 to 1953.
This does not include non-combatant Canadian civilians who have died in Afghanistan because of Harpers War.
2 Canadian aid workers killed in roadside ambush in Afghanistan
And while lists of Canadians killed in Afghanistan usually include all of the miliatry personnel killed the two aid workers are not always listed as causulties and the first non-government non-military civiilan killed in Afghanistan in July 2006, is always forgotten as a victim of Harpers War....
Afghanistan's ambassador to Canada says millions will remember Mike Frastacky, a Vancouver carpenter who returned to their country year after year to build a school for young children, only to be shot.
Remember we are fighting for schools and children especially girls in Afghanistan, but the guy who built them and got killed for it gets forgotten.
Oh the Harpocrsy of it all.
SEE:
Mayor Of Kabul Says Get Out
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Friday, December 05, 2008
Harpers Putsch
But now, he told viewers, a coalition of opposition parties is trying to oust him through a backroom deal "without your say, without your consent and without your vote."
Just how valid is Harper's claim that changing governments without a new election would be undemocratic?
"It's politics, it's pure rhetoric," said Ned Franks, a retired Queen's University expert on parliamentary affairs. "Everything that's been happening is both legal and constitutional."
Other scholars are virtually unanimous in their agreement. They say Harper's populist theory of democracy is more suited to a U.S.-style presidential system, in which voters cast ballots directly for a national leader, than it is to Canadian parliamentary democracy.
"He's appealing to people who learned their civics from American television," said Henry Jacek, a political scientist at McMaster University.
In Canada, there's no national vote for prime minister. People elect MPs in 308 ridings, and a government holds power only as long as it has the support of a majority of those MPs.
"We have a rule that the licence to govern is having the confidence of the House of Commons," said Peter Russell, a former University of Toronto professor and adviser to past governors general.
"I'm sorry, that's the rule. If they want to change it to having a public opinion poll, we'd have to reform and rewrite our Constitution."
Such cuts, he added, would be consistent with Harper's long-term goal of reducing the size and scope of government.
"I think that's always been sort of the long-term plan, the way that Stephen was going about it of first depriving the government of surpluses through cutting taxes . . . You get rid of the surpluses and then it makes it easier to make some expenditure reductions."
At a minimum, Flanagan said: "I think there's certainly room for some incremental cuts to useless programs."
The government has already used the economic crisis to put off plans for a national portrait gallery, citing the need for fiscal restraint in uncertain times.
From Flanagan's perspective, the government would do well to scupper a host of grants, contracts and business subsidies and to pare a lot of what he considers wasteful spending on cultural and aboriginal programs.
So wrote Tom Flanagan, one of the deep thinkers of the conservative movement in Canada and a mentor to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Flanagan's prescient op-ed piece from August appeared to come to fruition in Thursday's fiscal update when Harper's Conservatives moved to end public financing of federal political parties under the guise of austerity. "There will be no free ride for political parties," Flaherty told the House of Commons in his speech on the update. "Even during the best of economic times, parties should count primarily on the financial support of their own members and their own donors."
Thursday, December 04, 2008
Funny I Said That
SEE:
Black Gold
U.S. Economy Entering Twilight Zone
Tag
sasset-backed commercial paper ,, goldhomes, mortgages, housing, bubble, US, economy, oil prices, sub-prime mortgage, Wall Street, crash, recession,
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Class War Returns
Premier Ed Stelmach's government should expand no-strike legislation for public-sector employees to blunt the unions' main bargaining tool in contract negotiations, says the Alberta director for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. Such a move, said Danielle Smith, would help deflate public sector payrolls. A national CFIB study examining the gap between wages paid in the public and private sectors at all three levels of government shows on average, public employees earn considerably more, especially when pensions and benefits are included. Federal employees get 17.3% more; provincial 7.9% more
A hiring freeze to shrink public payrolls or expanded no-strike legislation could help achieve that, she said. Now the question arises how politically realistic such measures are, given at the federal level, expanded non-strike provisions, as suggested by the Tory minority government, helped precipitate a putsch by the Opposition.
Dannielle Smith is a Calgarian like the PM, a former Fraser Institute student, a scab during the Calgary Herald Strike, a fellow traveler of the Canadian Reform/Alliance/Conservative party, do ya think this survey may have been leaked to the Harpocrites earlier than its release today to justify their attack on the public service unions in the fiscal update?
Once again the right wing ideolouges promote class war while claiming to speak for taxpayers, who really are not taxpayers but business interests who pay little or no taxes. The real taxpayers are the working class, especially those who are unionized and pay the highest taxes!
SEE:
Harpocrites Declare Class War
Wage Controls
In Quebec Everyone is a Nationalist
During the election even Liberal leader Stephae Dion squeeked that he too is a Quebec nationalist.
Heck the Governor General is a Quebecois nationalist, as is her husband.
Why so are the Francophone Ministers and back benchers in Harpers own government. Those who can barely speak a word of English, who speak only in French in Question Period. And of course there is always this Queberc Conservative MP; Denis Lebel Nationalist
And don't forget when the Harpocrites got into power last eelection they axed the Canadian Unity Council much to the joy of the BQ and PQ. Harpers Anti-Federalism
And thanks to the BQ the Harpocrites survived a potentioal confidence vote over the Soft Wood Lumber Trade deal. Between a Bloc and A Hard Place
So the strawman of Quebec seperatism is being used because the Harpocrites would not get any millage with calling the newly proposed coalition what it is a coalition of the Centre Left, a coalition of progressive parties, social democratic coalition, heck a socialist coalition.
Because the majority of Canadaians and Quebecois are social democrats. We are centre left, not centre right. And the BQ today is not the BQ of Lucien Bouchard, it is to the left of the Liberals like the NDP, and in some cases it is to the left even of the NDP.
The argument that the coalition is 'undemocratic' and somehow an attempt to overthrow the government is laughable. Of course poruging parliment during an economic crisis is far more undermocratic and an abdication of governance. But the Harpocrites have done it before, in order to kill the oppositions Environmental bill. Parliamentary Collapse
Harper is to be congratulated though on doing something that no-one ever expected would happen, he has done what Judy Rebick andher crowd at Rabble.ca could not do, he has united the Left in Canada.
And now he is terrified.
SEE:
Jack Layton PM
Harpocrites Declare Class War
Shades of Grenwal Tory Dirty Tricks
Right Wing Nationalism
Canada and Quebec Two Tory Solitudes
Bouchard's Bankrupt Nationalism
Conservatives Orwellian Language Politics
Clear Eyed View of the Quebec New Right
Defending Quebec's Interests. Which Interests are those Mssr. Duccepe?
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Harper, Canada, Quebec, federalism, Government, PM, PMO, Cabinet, BQ, seperatism, Canada, politics, Conservatives, opposition coalition, economy, government, Conservatives, Harper, recession, NDP, Liberals, BQ, politics, , federal election, minoirity government Jack Layton, , left-wing, unite-the-left, socialism, Quebec, social-democracy, NDP, PQ, BQ,
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Jack Layton PM
Dissension over leadership could derail coalition
Leader for Liberal-NDP coalition unclear
SEE:
Shades of Grenwal Tory Dirty Tricks
Liberals Gain Third Party Status
Jack Layton PM?
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politics, Jack Layton, ConservativesCanada, Stephen Harper, Liberals, Dion, Duceppe,BQ, Quebec, PM, poll, NDP,
Harpocrites Declare Class War
Canada's largest federal union is planning to join a national campaign for public servants to support a coalition government and topple the minority Conservative government.
The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) is joining a number of groups, including the Canadian Labour Congress, to back a Liberal and NDP coalition after accusing the Conservatives of failing to provide enough stimulus to kick-start a weakening economy.
The decision comes after the government of Stephen Harper backed down on a plan to take away the unions' right to strike when it introduces legislation to limit public servants wage increases to 6.8% over four years.
PSAC president John Gordon rejected suggestions such a campaign violates the bureaucracy's non-parti
Mr. Gordon said the union was willing to restrain wages and do its bit for the economy when it agreed to the government's 6.8% deal, but was incensed when Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's economic statement offered no stimulus package for the economy and then heaped "another slap" on federal workers by taking away the right to strike and collective bargaining, rolling back wages of workers whose contracts were already settled.
SEE:
Wage Controls
tags
Harper, Conservatives, deficit, Government, politics, Flaherty, Budget, PSAC, politics,Canada, Surplus, Economy, stike, wage controls,
Ancient Ukraine
Mysteries of Ancient Ukraine: the Remarkable Trypilian Culture 5400-2700 BC Opens at ROM
Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) presents Mysteries of Ancient Ukraine: the Remarkable Trypilian Culture (5400 – 2700 BC), the world’s first large scale exhibition uncovering the secrets of this ancient society which existed in present day Ukraine 7,000 – 5,000 years ago. The mystery of this compelling and sophisticated culture, known for creating the largest settlements anywhere in the world at the time, only to inexplicably disappear, is illuminated through some 300 artifacts, many never before seen in North America. The exhibition is on display in the Museum’s 3rd floor Centre Block from Saturday, November 29, 2008 to Sunday, March 22, 2009.
Background: In 1896, during the great age of archaeological discoveries that unearthed Troy, Mycenae, Knossos and the many civilizations of Mesopotamia, archaeologist Vikenty Khvoika, a pioneer of Ukrainian archaeology, unearthed the remains of a prehistoric people near the village of Trypillia, and which means “three fields” in Ukrainian. This society is thought to have flourished in the forest-steppe region of present-day Ukraine, an area approximately 50,000 square kilometres from the upper Dniester River on the west to the mid-Dnipro River on the east. In addition to intriguing religious and cosmological beliefs, the Trypilians achieved a great degree of sophistication – not only were they expert farmers, herders and craftsmen, they excelled in pottery making, evident in the technical and artistic excellence of each piece on display. Equally compelling, the Trypilian culture may best be known for building two-storey houses and its giant settlements, burned to the ground every 60 to 80 years by the Trypilians themselves, prior to moving to a new location. Approximately 2,000 Trypilian sites have been found.
“In the century since their discovery, archaeologists have learned that the Trypilians were even more extraordinary than Khvoika imagined," explains exhibition curator, Dr. Krzysztof Ciuk of the ROM’s World Cultures Department. "It is uncertain why this culture disappeared. Trypilians may have been replaced by Indo-European peoples who expanded both east and west at this period or, perhaps, as the climate became drier and the forest-steppe gave way to steppe, the culture’s ecological equilibrium was stressed and a way of life was adopted to mirror their more technologically advanced neighbours.”
A sampling of artifacts, including one of Khvoika’s earthenware jars, dating to 3500 BC, its surface rich with incised curvilinear ornamentation, is on display. To place the Trypilian culture in context, The Neolithic Revolution examines the development of human societies in Europe from the end of the last Ice Age to the arrival of Copper Age cultures, including Trypilian. Other Neolithic cultures, such as the Halaf, from what is now known as northern Syria and south-eastern Turkey, and the Vinca from what is now known as modern Serbia, are juxtaposed, their artistic legacies having much in common. Here, visitors can study the earthenware portrait of a pensive male face, created by the Vinca approximately 7,500 years ago, and which bears striking similarity to the ‘realistic’ portraits of Trypillia.
Spirituality and Artistic Expression highlights various puzzling pieces of ceramic art made by the Trypilians - specifically anthropomorphic figurines (ranging from stylized to quasi-realistic) and containers decorated in various ways (incised, monochromatic, polychromatic). Found in many Neolithic cultures, the female figurines on display, with exaggerated feminine features, are believed by some scholars to represent a ‘great mother goddess’. Other ceramic objects, such as footed platforms, and enigmatic, hollow “binocular” pieces, attest to the spiritual and ritual life of the Trypilians.
When Prehistory Becomes History
As we were first learning about the ancient Trypillians during the early 20th century, the first evidence was also emerging that the Trypillians who lived on Ukrainian soil were related to the Sumerians of Mesopotamia.Anatoly Kyfishyn made the first solid connection between the two cultures when he deciphered pictograms on the so-called Stone Tomb in the south of Ukraine. These pictograms, chiseled into the walls of this unique artifact dating from 12,000 to 3,000 BC were samples of the early Sumerian writing. Ceramics created by the ancient Trypillians also bore Sumerian script, leaving no doubt that Sumerian writing originated with the Trypillyan civilization. The pictograms on the Stone Tomb clarify the origin of inscriptions made during the 12th to third millennium BC. So Sumerian writing, the first writing in the history of mankind, is a product of the development of a human civilization that for many thousands of years thrived in Europe and the Middle East.As soon as similarities between the two forms of writing became known, previous contradictions were explained.First, it became clear who brought a developed culture to the land between the Tigris and Euphrates. Second, scholars managed to discover traces of mass migration from Trypillia (also known as Koukoutenya) to the Middle East. The migration to Mesopotamia was probably due to climatic changes and demographic factors such as overpopulation, as the ancient technology of land cultivation and cattle-breeding required favorable climatic conditions and huge expanses of land. Finally, it was determined that the large Sumerian cities, including Ur, Uruk and Djamjet-Nasra were reflection of the huge Trypillian agrocities. Pre-Sumerians brought city-states and social structures characteristic of Trypillians to Mesopotamia. This structure, void of social, ethnic and tribal antagonisms, explains the extraordinary stability of both Sumerian and Trypillyan societies over long periods of time.Today, scholars are trying to explain the disappearance of the Trypillian civilization after 3,000 years.It is intriguing to think that the Trypillians may have been our ancestors. One hypothesis holds that the civilization dispersed after climate changes saw the mild, wet climate give way to drier weather at the beginning of the third millennium BC. The theory is that Trypillians scattered in different directions: to Ukraine's Polissya, the Carpathian region, the Middle East, Greece, Italy and even the British Isles. Ukrainian and foreign sources alike cite this theory.Ukrainians can feel a connection with the self-sufficient nation (or nations) that have lived on this land over time. It's easy to see similarities between traditional Ukrainian patterns and shapes on ancient Trypillian artifacts. Though perhaps a simple coincidence, it is no less enjoyable for modern residents of Ukraine, and contributes to their interest in genealogy.There is public interest in continued research of the Trypillian civilization and in establishing museums and cultural heritage parks. They want Ukrainian officials and the EU to draw attention to the necessity of this pre-historic research, making the Trypillian civilization a better known aspect of mankind's history.Historians remind us that history didn't begin with the Trypillians. A pre-Trypillian period could be as exciting. Hopefully, our future will broaden our knowledge about our mysterious and remote past.
Mysterious Neolithic People Made Optical Art
Discovery News ^ September 22, 2008 Rossella Lorenzi
Running until the end of October at the Palazzo della Cancelleria in the Vatican, the exhibition, "Cucuteni-Trypillia: A Great Civilization of Old Europe," introduces a mysterious Neolithic people who are now believed to have forged Europe's first civilization...Archaeologists have named them "Cucuteni-Trypillians" after the villages of Cucuteni, near Lasi, Romania and Trypillia, near Kiev, Ukraine, where the first discoveries of this ancient civilization were made more than 100 years ago.The excavated treasures -- fired clay statuettes and op art-like pottery dating from 5000 to 3000 B.C. -- immediately posed a riddle to archaeologists... "Despite recent extensive excavations, no cemetery has ever been found," Lacramioara Stratulat, director of the Moldova National Museum Complex of Iasi, told reporters at a news conference recently at the Vatican.Before their culture mysteriously faded, the Cucuteni-Trypillians had organized into large settlements. Predating the Sumerians and Egyptian settlements, these were basically proto-cities with buildings often arranged in concentric circles... in what is now Romania, Ukraine and Moldova.
The Trypilska Kultura - The Spiritual Birthplace of Ukraine?
History of jewellery in Ukraine
Trypillian Civilization 5400 - 2750 BC Study-Tour Overview
SEE:
Pyramid in Ukraine
The Monument Builders
Another Dirty Little Secret
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Ukraine, Trypollian, Trypolian, neolithic, Indo-Europeans, matriarchy, prehistory, Proto-Indo-Europeans, archaeology, Kiev,
Shaman Was A Woman
The skeleton of a 12,000 year-old Natufian Shaman has been discovered in northern Israel by archaeologists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The burial is described as being accompanied by "exceptional" grave offerings - including 50 complete tortoise shells, the pelvis of a leopard and a human foot. The shaman burial is thought to be one of the earliest known from the archaeological record and the only shaman grave in the whole region. Dr. Leore Grosman of the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University, who is heading the excavation at the Natufian site of Hilazon Tachtit in the western Galilee, says that the elaborate and invested interment rituals and method used to construct and seal the grave suggest that this woman had a very high standing within the community.
According to Dr. Grosman, the burial of the woman is unlike any burial found in the Natufian or the preceding Paleolithic periods. "Clearly a great amount of time and energy was invested in the preparation, arrangement, and sealing of the grave." This was coupled with the special treatment of the buried body.
Shamans are universally recorded cross-culturally in hunter-gatherer groups and small-scale agricultural societies. Nevertheless, they have rarely been documented in the archaeological record and none have been reported from the Paleolithic of Southwest Asia.
The Natufians existed in the Mediterranean region of the Levant 15,000 to 11,500 years ago. Dr. Grosman suggests this grave could point to ideological shifts that took place due to the transition to agriculture in the region at that time.
SEE:
Another Prehistoric Woman
Another Dirty Little Secret
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neolithic, Israel, archaeology, shaman, paleollithic, woman, matriarchy, ancient, agrarian, culture, civilisation
Cryptozoology Comes Of Age
If you've read Scott Weidensaul's excellent book The Ghost With Trembling Wings (2002), you'll recall the story of Louise Emmons and the giant Peruvian rodent she discovered. But before I get to that, let me say that The Ghost With Trembling Wings isn't about ghosts at all, but about the search for cryptic or supposedly extinct species. Think thylacines, British big cats, Ivory-billed woodpeckers, Cone-billed tanagers, the resurrection of the aurochs, Night parrots, Richard Meinertzhagen and the Indian forest owlet. It begins with Weidensaul's search for Semper's warbler Leucopeza semperi, an enigmatic parulid endemic to St. Lucia, discovered in 1870 and last seen alive in 1969 (although with a trickle of post-1969 sightings, some reliable and some not so reliable). If you're interested in the hunt for cryptic species and zoological field work and its history, it is mandatory that you obtain and read this inexpensive book.
Louise Emmons is a highly distinguished, experienced mammalogist who has worked on bats, tree shrews, cats big and small, and rodents, and is also the foremost expert on the mammals of the Neotropical rainforests (she wrote the only field guide to Neotropical rainforest mammals: Emmons 1999a). On 15th June 1997, while on an expedition to the northern Vilcabamba range of Cusco, Peru, she was walking along a forest track when, lying dead on the track in front of her, she discovered a big dead rodent. Pale grey, but handsomely patterned with a white nose and lips, and with a white blaze running along the top of its head, it was over 30 cm in head and body length, and with a tail over 20 cm long. Its broad feet, prominent and curved claws, large hallux, and palms and soles covered in small tubercles indicated that it was a tree-climbing species. A large bite wound on the neck indicated that it had recently been killed by a predator, probably a Long-tailed weasel Mustela frenata.
And it was entirely new: no one had ever recorded anything like it before. In her description of the new species, Emmons (1999b) named it Cuscomys ashaninka (meaning 'mouse from Cusco, of the Ashaninka people') and showed that it was a member of Abrocomidae. This is an entirely South American group previously known only from Abrocoma Waterhouse 1837, members of which are sometimes called rat chinchillas, chinchilla rats or chinchilliones, and from the Miocene fossil Protabrocoma Kraglievich 1927. Abrocoma is known from eight species (A. bennetti, A. boliviensis, A. cinerea, A. vaccarum, A. uspallata, A. budini, A. famatina and A. schistacea), among which A. boliviensis was only recognised in 1990 and A. uspallata in 2002 (Glanz & Anderson 1990, Braun & Mares 1996, 2002). Incidentally A. bennetti has 17 pairs of ribs - more than any other rodent. Abrocoma produces midden piles, and Pleistocene rodent middens from Chile have been identified by DNA analysis as having been produced by Abrocoma (Kuch et al. 2002).
And speaking of unkown species here is a possible explanation for the Ogopogo.
Could unknown Okanagan creature be baby Ogopogo?
Kent Spencer, Canwest News ServicePublished: Monday, November 10, 2008
VANCOUVER - A TV documentary crew has added to the mystery surrounding Ogopogo by finding an unknown biological specimen in the depths of Okanagan Lake.
"I told a radio station tongue-in-cheek I thought it was the baby Ogopogo," monster-watcher Bill Steciuk of Kelowna said Monday after the History Channel completed a nine-day shoot.
"It was all curled up. The features were really hard to see. You could see a little head tucked in and a straight tail with no fins.
"It's a huge mystery. We have no idea what it is," said Steciuk, who helped organize the shooting locations.
The unidentified specimen has been shipped to the University of Guelph in Ontario for DNA tests, but Ogopogo buffs will have to wait until February to find out more, when the Monster Quest program weighs in on the legendary mega-serpent.
Ogopogo, first sighted in the 1870s, is reputed to be 12 metres long with multiple humps and a small head.
The History Channel, which had a bigger budget than previous expeditions, mounted a thermal infrared imaging camera on a helicopter for the first time. It picked up an unidentified shadow on the lake, while sonar spotted something over three metres long moving in the water.
"That's pretty big for a fish," said Steciuk.
But divers made the most interesting find in an underwater cave on the west side of Rattlesnake Island.
"I couldn't recognize it," said Steciuk. "Nor could anyone else. Maybe a new species has been found."
See
Sea Serpent
Die Vurm
Strange Sea Creatures
Chupacabra A Shunka Warakin
Cryptozology Part 1
Cryptozoology Part 2
They Walk Among Us
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Monsters, Lake monsters, myths, legends,cryptozoology, rare, animals, biology, fish, living fossil, strange animals,